


i look at you and i'm home

by DrPearlGatsby



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Gingerflower, Gingerose, Gingerrose - Freeform, Millicent!, Post-TRoS, Rose Tico Needs A Hug, Rose Tico also needs a nap, background Finn and Poe, canon divergence post-TROS, little hurt/comfort vibes, lots of making out, very light on the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:27:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrPearlGatsby/pseuds/DrPearlGatsby
Summary: “I wish I’d known you longer,” he’d told her at the end of the meal, and Rose had laughed—forcefully, awkwardly, only once—to cover up the breath like a sob that tore out of her.“There’s still time to know me,” she’d insisted, meaningI care about you, meaningplease be careful, meaningI want you. “When you get back.”Briefly, Hux’s eyes had flickered down to her lips. “When I get back.”.Hux returns from a dangerous mission, and Rose can't wait to welcome him back.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 27
Kudos: 115





	i look at you and i'm home

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to find the capacity to write something light and sweet. I've been slogging through this for several weeks, but I decided to stop slogging and finish it off because we could probably all use a pinch of tooth-rotting fluff right now.
> 
> Thanks to the Gingerrose Hub for feeding the flame of this ship, especially those of you who have floated the idea that the Arkanisian accent is Domhnall's Irish accent (I know I talked about that with [@ShadowRenWrites](https://twitter.com/shadowrenwrites), but I can't remember who else--!). #Sluts4HuxHoes4Rose
> 
> NB: Not entirely sure this earns the "explicit" rating (I'm being cautious). I'm still a little hesitant writing smut, but they still manage to... uh, do some things.

Rose has barely slept an hour when her alarm goes off again. She’s totally exhausted down to her bones, but as she regains just enough consciousness to open one eye and swat at the chronometer, the night comes flooding back to her in all its ugly detail and she’s instantly awake, fighting down the tight panic in her chest.

_It’s Hux_ , the cadet had told her, and she’d bolted from bed, just barely remembering to slip a more appropriate tunic over her sleep clothes. Huddled in the control room with the Generals Dameron, she’d hunched over the secure messaging channel, relaying the coded messages they were getting as someone scrambled to rouse a crew. _Danger_ , his messages said, _Compromised_. Rose had sent transmission after transmission, messages that urged him to a rendezvous point. After the first hour he’d not answered, and four hours had passed; Poe sent Rose to bed, encouraging her to get a late start to her day if needed.

She’s surprised she’s managed to sleep at all. She curls the blanket around herself, craving more rest but unable to stop her brain. After a few futile, uncomfortable minutes of tossing and turning, she gives up, pads into the ’fresher, and gets ready for work like any other day.

**.**

Down in the workroom, personnel is sparse. There was a rash of people asking for leave—something about the beautiful weather outside, something about her generosity—and she’d thought the quiet wouldn’t bother her. Instead it only calls attention to the fact that he isn’t just in the next room, humming tunelessly to himself when he’s trying to solve a sticky problem or checking if she’d like to share a fresh pot of tea.

It had been a long shot, Poe and Finn trusting Hux with a mission—but after all, Arkanis was his homeworld. It had only taken a few days of studying for him to relearn the accent, and he was more than proficient in the engineering tasks they’d needed him to perform. Rose’s relentless optimism had refused to consider it a suicide mission, studiously ignoring the little voice in the back of her head that reminded her they’d sent away the backup, dropped him off on the planet with a promise to signal him of their return in a month or two.

It’s a month and a half now since he’d departed, since they’d shared their last meal in the caf—a hurried breakfast of warm mugs of tea and long moments of eye contact that Rose was certain she’d read loud and clear.

“I wish I’d known you longer,” he’d told her at the end of the meal, and Rose had laughed—forcefully, awkwardly, only once—to cover up the breath like a sob that tore out of her.

“There’s still time to know me,” she’d insisted, meaning _I care about you_ , meaning _please be careful_ , meaning _I want you_. “When you get back.”

Briefly, Hux’s eyes had flickered down to her lips. “When I get back.”

She’s fantasized about the suggestion in his eyes—if she’s being honest, long before the mission. Their begrudging work relationship—one she’d initially agreed to form only because she’d known no one else would, _always_ wanting to give people another chance—had grown steadily from one of stiff professionalism to one of sarcasm and easy troubleshooting, companionable silence and taking their meals together just to continue a conversation—or, more often, an argument. It had been gradual, his transformation from machine back into man; or else he’d been a man all along, one who’d desperately needed someone to finally _see_ him.

Rose’s hand hesitates over the comlink, knowing there’s only one acceptable answer to the question she’s about to ask. Still, she pages the generals.

Finn answers, not even bothering with a greeting: “Nothing yet.”

“ _Kriff_ ,” Rose swears quietly. “Thanks,” she adds, trying to make her voice sound chipper.

“You get enough sleep?”

“Sleep is for the weak.”

“ _And_ the engineers. Take a break, ok?”

Rose is careful to keep the tears out of her voice. “Yeah, I will!” After she ends the transmission she excuses herself to the ’fresher, where she splashes some cold water on her face.

She has dark circles under her eyes and a sickly undertone to her skin—she doesn’t look good. The caf she’d chugged an hour ago is losing its potency, and a headache is beginning to throb at her temple, at war with the unbearable tightness in her chest, anxiety caging her lungs and making every breath feel shallow. Finally, she concedes; she pushes off the sink and heads back to her quarters, where she collapses into a deep, dreamless sleep.

**.**

“Rose, _Rose_ ,” someone is shaking her.

Rose would much rather stay asleep, and her eyes feel too heavy to open. She tries ignoring the voice, the hand on her shoulder.

“Rose, the debrief is over. They landed. Everyone made it back.”

Rose rolls over abruptly. “Everyone?”

“Everyone,” Finn nods. “Sent him to his quarters about—twenty minutes ago?”

Rose leaps off the bed and slips on her shoes. “Why didn’t you wake me when you knew?”

“Kriff, we _tried_. You sleep like the dead.”

Rose huffs a laugh, stuck on the expression. _Like the dead_. She’d spent the last eighteen hours assuming the worst, but now—“What time is it?”

“Caf opens for dinner in thirty.” Finn is on his way out the door, leaving her to pull herself together, but he turns back when he’s halfway out. “Rose?”

Rose looks up from the mirror, where she’s double-checking that her hair isn’t doing anything too off-the-wall, and meets his eyes. His expression is grave, and for a moment she thinks he’s going to scold her. Everyone knew they’d become friendly, herself and Hux, but she knows that since last night she’s been wearing her heart on her sleeve.

His mouth quirks into a little smile. “Good work, alright? To both of you.” What he means is, _we trust you_.

“Thanks.”

**.**

Rose is at Hux’s door in under ten minutes, taking a deep breath and smoothing at her slightly-rumpled shirt one more time before raising her hand to knock. _Remain calm_ , she’s been telling herself the whole walk over. _Don’t want to overwhelm him. He might even be asleep. If he doesn’t answer, it’s okay. It’s okay!_

She knocks.

It’s quiet, here in the hallway; no one else is passing through. Rose glances up and down the corridor, tapping her fingers against the seams of her pants. She rocks back on her heels, counting slowly to ten. _One more knock_ , she allows herself, repeating the gesture. _Just this one more time, and if he doesn’t answer—_

“Come in,” she hears a voice call from within, and she’s pressing the release panel instantly, craning her neck into the room. Hux is standing at the mirror over the sink, running an old-fashioned straight razor over the last part of his jawline. His hair is neatly trimmed and parted, still a little damp from the ’fresher. His standard-issue drab work shirt and pants—very similar to her regular uniform—are no different than they’ve been in the last however-many months Rose has worked alongside him, but it’s with effort that she restrains herself from gasping audibly. He’s such an attractive man, Hux, and now that she’s given up on pretending she doesn’t see it—

“What the _kriffing hell_ is that?” Rose’s grasping for an appropriate greeting is forgotten as she notices a fuzzy orange ball of fur winding its way between Hux’s legs.

“Her name is Millicent.”

Rose opens and closes her mouth, watching the ginger cat stalk carefully toward her. “Millicent?”

“She adopted me on-planet,” Hux explains, his voice making crisp Arkanisian sounds that the Imperial accent skips over and smooths out. “I couldn’t just _leave_ her.”

Rose nearly swoons on the spot at the sound of his Arkanisian accent. She’d heard it before—just before his departure—but it’s as if Hux has been suddenly _amplified_ for her. She’s at a loss and doesn’t trust herself to communicate coherently with him yet, so she scoops the cat into her arms, stepping into the room fully so the door can shut behind her. Millicent doesn’t protest, seeming quite content to hang from Rose’s arms like a child’s toy with a spring. Rose settles onto Hux’s bed, glancing over as he washes away the traces of shaving cream and pats his face with a towel.

“That settles it then,” Rose declares, running a hand through Millicent’s soft fur before the cat stretches and squirms out of her grasp. “Clearly you were always meant to work for us. Because what kind of _kriffing lunatic_ goes on a spy mission and brings back—” she chokes on a laugh—“a _fuzzy friend_? For a few hours there last night, we…” All humor leaves her voice. “We thought you might not make it back.”

“For the last few days, I didn’t think I would, either.”

The words hang heavy in the air, and Hux pauses a moment to consider her from where he stands beside the sink. Then in two quick strides he’s right in front of her. “Rose—” he chokes out as he bends down to crush his lips to hers, and it’s everything at once—her hands twisting in his shirt and his hand on her back pulling her up to him.

Once they’re both standing Rose crowds her body into his, craving to somehow be closer when it already seems that every part of them is touching, her hand stroking his smooth, soap-scented jaw and his free hand smoothing the curve at her hip. It’s the wiry strength of his angles so perfectly meeting her curves—meanwhile his mouth opening hungrily against hers, his gentle suckling and biting at her lower lip, and when he breaks for breath it’s her turn to pepper him with kisses, all across his face. Rose kisses him like the precious thing he is, soft little presses of her lips to his lips, to his chin, to the tip of his nose—kisses for this dear, precious man, so broken but working so hard at mending.

And then she is crying, sobbing into his chest, clinging to him as he envelops her in his arms. “I was so scared,” she tries to tell him through her tears, and he tightens his grip on her. “ _Kriff_. Oh, you made it—you _made_ it.”

“All thanks to you, my flower,” he mumbles into her hair.

Rose leans back to look up into his face, making sure he sees her watery grin at his endearment, and then she’s taking a step back and pulling him along with her. Soon she’s on her back on the bed and he’s hovering over her, finally at her insistence pressing himself into her and capturing her lips again. Her hands go up around his neck to keep him in place and their kisses become more languid, more searching and sensual. One of his hands travels from her hip toward her chest, and Rose arches up into his touch, scratching at the neatly-trimmed hair at the base of his neck with her fingernails. His hand squeezes gently at her breast and he groans softly into her mouth.

Rose is melting underneath him, melting and squirming and as the heat builds within her. In the midst of lips and teeth and hands she can feel his hardness against her leg, and almost without thinking she tries to maneuver him into contact with her throbbing core.

“Rose,” he keeps saying her name breathlessly between kisses. “Rose, _Rose_.” On his lips and in that Arkanisian lilt her name sounds like a prayer, like he’s been wandering the desert for days and she is his oasis.

“I wanted this so bad,” she confesses as he presses hot, openmouthed kisses to her neck, drunk on the feel of him on top of her and the knowledge that maybe he’s wanted her like this just as long. “I wanted— _ah!_ ” She’s breathless and her voice doesn’t sound at all like her but it’s all she can manage as he sucks at her skin—“You’ll leave a mark!”

Hux relents, nipping at the skin before kissing a trail back up her face. “Anything but that,” he deadpans, tugging at the buttons of her shirt.

Rose captures his lips with hers again, lifting her hips as he grinds down into her. She tries to worm a hand between them to help him with her shirt, tugging the material apart as he works his way down. Soon he’s opened the shirt fully, exposing her simple brassiere. He props himself up on one elbow, his hand hovering over her.

He’s looking for the clasp, Rose realizes. “It’s in the ba— _aack_!” She twitches, her voice going high-pitched as he dips his head down and runs his tongue along the edge of the cup. “Stars,” she breathes, pushing her chest up at his mouth. “Do that again.”

He obliges with the other side. Rose maneuvers a hand under herself to release the clasp, and soon he’s pushed the cups down her chest and out of his way. He pauses, regarding her naked breasts with hungry eyes and muttering reverently, “More beautiful than I imagined.”

“You imagined?” Rose repeats, craving his praise.

“This, I must confess,” he runs a finger lightly over one nipple, teasing it into a peak, “was only just the beginning.” And then he’s teasing the nipple with his teeth and tongue and Rose is moaning from the sensation. He glances up at her, taking his mouth off of her breast just to blow cool air onto it.

“Armitage!” she half-giggles, trying to manage her reactions and all these new and delicious sensations.

“Rose.” He dips his head to attend to the other breast, mumbling on the way. “My beautiful flower. So supple and sweet.” As he teases her other nipple she reaches with one hand—it’s complete wishful thinking, the hope that she’ll reach his belt—but as her hand reaches under his shirt she feels the familiar padded texture of a bacta bandage.

Rose gasps—half from the effect the wet, openmouthed kisses he’s lavishing on her chest and half from her revelation. “You’re injured,” she protests, pushing him slightly off her with one hand.

“It’s nothing,” he says, but when she looks into his face with clearer eyes she can see the strain there. He’s in pain.

“We should stop,” Rose says softly, cupping his cheek with her other hand.

“It was shallow, barely any tissue damage. Not as bad as your friend Dameron—”

“You were _shot_?” Rose’s voice goes up in pitch, almost a squeak. The fact that Finn had brought him back to his room—she’d just assumed with him not in the medbay—

“I’m _fine_.” He lowers himself back onto her, shaking off her hand and kissing a trail from her breasts to her neck and then her jaw. But Rose can’t stop the panic rising in her chest. The exhaustion and fear of the night previous are still weighing on her, still lingering, and he’s so damn _attentive_ , so delighted by something as simple as her breasts and she feels _beautiful_ , more beautiful than she ever has and it’s all so much. She’s crying again when Hux kisses his way to her mouth. “Sweet Rose,” he murmurs, his voice doing that lovely Arkanisian thing with the _r_ sound. “ _Stars_.”

He’s shifting over her, one hand smoothing over her hip and moving further south. He punctuates the movement with a sloppy kiss, pulling back just slightly then to seek her permission with his eyes. Rose is nodding emphatically when it occurs to both of them at once that they’re hearing a persistent knocking sound—someone is at the door.

They freeze. “Don’t answer,” Rose whispers unevenly, sure that Hux’s wide-eyed look is mirrored back on her own face.

“Hello?” the voice calls.

Hux frowns. “Dameron the husband.”

“Finn?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Wait, is—is _that_ really how you differentiate between them? What do you call Poe if Finn gets to be ‘the husband?’”

“Ssssh,” Hux hisses without venom. “‘Dameron the jackass.’”

Rose swallows her laugh before she manages to make a sound.

“Hello-o?” Finn is knocking again. “Rose, you left your comlink in the workshop and one of your younger apprentices has _majorly_ screwed up all the automatic doors on the south wing.”

Rose feels as if her eyes must look as large as dinner plates; Hux, for his part, is starting to turn red, first with the tips of his ears.

Finn is still talking. “…can’t afford to blast through them like that incident two weeks ago, so we’re gonna need you down there. Also, Hux, I have to ask you a few more questions over dinner. I’ll walk away now so you can pretend you’re not both in there, and I’ll see you in five.” There is another brief knock at the door—like the kind of pat you give a ship that’s about to take off—and the very faint sound of receding footsteps.

When the coast is clear, Rose lets out the breath she’s been holding; it comes out as a semi-hysterical giggle. Hux curses delicately, giving her one long kiss and then drawing back as if contemplating disobedience.

For a minute they both consider it. Then Rose sighs, squeezing at his hip on the non-injured side. “Later.”

Hux carefully moves off of her. Rose sits up and readjusts her clothes, watching how Hux returns to the mirror to comb his hair back into place. He seems to sense her looking, glancing back in the mirror; Rose just grins, drinking him in.

Millicent hops up onto the bed, and Hux offers Rose the mirror. She’s suddenly bashful, unsure of what exactly to _say_ after everything that’s just transpired; and she fiddles with her hair longer than necessary, thinking.

“I—”

As Rose turns toward him, they speak almost in unison. She giggles softly, the tension draining; he gives her a spare smile, a light flush reddening his cheeks and ears.

“Might I see you—later this evening?” Hux is the first to continue, stepping toward her. He’s standing up straight, the Imperial accent returning incrementally into his speech. “Even if it’s just for good-night.”

“Of course.” Rose moves forward into his space until they’re toe-to-toe, both of her hands seeking both of his. “Armitage? Do you—do you prefer your Imperial accent?”

He closes his fingers around hers. “I… don’t suppose I’ve really considered it.”

“Okay.”

His face flushes a deeper pink. For a man who’s just had his mouth on her breasts, he seems surprisingly bashful. “Do you?”

“It’s nice. But…” She gives him a heated look. “I like the Arkanisian too.”

“Oh stars,” he breathes, and the Arkanisian _r_ is back. He looks at her like she’s a miracle, and Rose almost tears up again. He leans down, pressing a soft kiss to her hair.

“Come on, Armitage,” she squeezes both his hands in hers, tugging him toward the door, and they leave his room the way they do most things for the rest of their lives: together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and leave a comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
